It took me about a month to finish this movie, just because Ric kept falling asleep or distracting me with Lost episodes. The third of the Die Hard series, this one doesn't put any of NY officer McClane's family members in peril. Instead, his unwilling sidekick, Zeus, has little nephews or something, and they're in a school that's been threatened to blow up. Our bad guy is Simon, brother to the first movie's villain, Hans. Simon is messing with McClane mostly because he can rather than paying him back for his brother's death. By predicting McClane's actions (as well as all emergency services of New York), he can cause a distraction and go for the gold, literally.

With Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons jumping on screen this time around, McClane is almost less interesting just because he's sharing so much screen time with other people who are bigger stars than in the first two movies. In those, McClane did almost everything on his own, which is what I liked so much about him. He had help from a couple of guys, but he did the biggest stunts on his own. This time, he's more dependent on Zeus to get through some of the tough times. It's not bad, just less exciting to me. But, having Zeus along is fun because the complaining nature of both men combined makes for some good comedy. I could have done without the race relations dialog though. Zeus asking if McClane thinks he can pick a lock because he's black is just a lame joke.

Jeremy Irons is always entertaining, and he definitely feels like a threatening personality, but his terrorist threats seem a bit less scary than in the first two movies. Somehow, stealing gold wasn't all that much of a fright to me, when compared to a bunch of planes running out of fuel mid-air. Still, Irons pulls it off, even though his evil-looking girlfriend is a complete waste of film-time.

Luckily, the stunts and performances by the main cast make it all worthwhile. I love how Simon keeps McClane and Zeus running around with timed deadlines and riddles. The taxi cab drive through Central Park and the trucking adventure into the aqueducts deliver plenty of fun as well. This one's not my favorite of the series, but I still had a good time watching it.

This morning I took my son to see Ice Age: The Meltdown at one of those early morning, cheap kids movies. Only $1 per person, and it was a nice theater, not one of those second run theaters.

This was his first time at a real movie theater, and he loved it. I predicted to Melanie that he would utter "Whoah!" a lot, and he did. He laughed loudly through most of the movie, and he made me laugh out loud too at some of the silly gags.

This was the first time I've been to a movie where crying kids was accepted, if not expected.

I agree with most of Michael Moore's opinions, and I think he makes some great arguments in support of them. I even enjoy his movies, even though he relies a little too heavily on his outrageous publicity stunts. I think he's played an important role in calling attention to problems with the Iraq war and the American health care system.

But it's still painful to watch him in interviews like this. Wolf Blitzer and his colleagues at CNN probably deserves to get told off a little bit, but after about two minutes of Moore's ranting I just wanted him to shut up. If he would just calm down and talk reasonably about the health care system I think he would win a lot more people over to his point of view.

Fortunately there are other places to go for a rational perspective. Like Fresh Air, for example. For yesterday's show Terry Gross interviewed a professor who has spent twenty years researching health care systems in the US and around the world. Naturally he has some great insights into the current state of American health care. Whatever your opinion on universal or private health care, you must listen to it.

While you're at it, you might as well subscribe to their podcast, because Fresh Air is simply the best serious interview show on radio or television.